Big and Small

My mother must have taken this picture — 1965?

I thought I had a large family when I was growing up.

My parents had five children — a nice, symmetrical boy-girl-boy-girl-boy.

Then I met my husband. He was the second of thirteen. As if that wasn’t enough, his cousin also came to live with them when her mother passed away, so really there were fourteen children in the family.  And one bathroom.

Big is a relative term.  My family was not big in comparison with Bud’s.

Bud and I have eight children — somewhere in between mine and his. Not that we planned it. We never sat down and said, “I grew up in a family of five kids. You grew up in a family of thirteen. Let’s split the difference.”

That would have been silly.

That would also have been nine.

We are just blessed. So very blessed.

When I saw on Cee’s Photography blog a challenge about Big and Small, of course I thought of family.

Really — that’s pretty much what I think about 90% of the time. Family will never be an overworked topic for me.

In particular, I thought of this photograph — my youngest and my oldest sons.

Karl and Philip — 1998?

This was at Philip’s wedding. Karl was gaining on Philip a very little.

Karl and Philip 2007

In recent pictures I found this one of Philip next to Karl while setting up a family shot. Philip’s little boy, Henry, loves his Uncle Karl.

 

Christmas 2016

But Philip is still taller than Karl.

And probably always will be.

I’ll have to keep an eye on these two, though.

Karl is a good pillow for Henry

Who will ultimately win this Big and Small?

Henry and Karl